


Bags of Time

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Johnny Maxwell - Terry Pratchett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-07
Updated: 2005-10-07
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:53:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few adventures of Mrs Tachyon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bags of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written for learnteach

 

 

Some people travel through time using modified cars with a very special kind of petrol. Others use a phone booth, never truly knowing how it works. And the most mystical device is the hourglass that measures time as grains of sand sifting through the length of time before the traveller must depart once more.

Compared to these, a trolley containing time in plastic shopping bags seems a bit mundane. But it works.

Mrs. Tachyon collects time, stores it in bags, and saves or spends it as she chooses. And she blows rasberries at those who say it can't be done, as she races past them in her trolley and opens one of her mysterious packages. Guilty scratches them, and Mrs Tachyon cackles in the mad way she has.

\---

Thur has mixed his paints carefully. He has rusty red, chalk white and dark brown colours, all lined up beside him. He has no brushes, but uses his hands. They are more delicate than his neanderthal appearance would suggest.

He smiles as he applies the first line, and sees it match the others on the wall perfectly. A few more lines, and it will be finished. It's not what the scene outside looks like, but what it truly is.

"Jolly Holiday, my old boot!" Mrs Tachyon screeches, and waves at him cheerfully. Thur frowns, but goes back to his painting and finishes the scene. He adds the two figures to the background, captures them in twisted likeness just before Mrs Tachyon leaves, and wonders what they were. Some kind of weird animal he decides, and shrugs. He goes back to the painting.

Millions of years later, a pair of archaeologists completely fail to explain the drawing of the shopping trolley in the middle of the pastoral caveman scene.

\---

A cup of tea and a bun are waiting for her in the cells, as is a freshly made bed with clean sheets. The usual set up for poor Mrs Tachyon.

"Thank you," she says, her eyes beady and sharp and sane for the moment. As one of the coppers looks at the other with curiosity, she grins and starts singing gibberish.

The other copper laughs. "Told you she didn't make no sense, didn't I?" He closes the door on her, but first says, "Goodnight Mrs, Tachyon."

"Nightie Pyjama and the flowerpot men," she replies, and the two coppers grin.

The two men have a cup of tea by themselves, listening to Mrs. Tachyon's singing from below as they talk about their wives, what they're doing when they're off duty, and what problems they can expect next time they're on patrol. Copper talk.

Decades later, when the wireless plays a song they've never heard before, neither can explain why it seems so familiar.

\---

In the future, the Earth dies, and Mrs. Tachyon is there to send it off.

"Millennium hand and shrimp!" she yells cheerfully at the overripe sun, and stuffs a handful of soggy chips into her mouth.

She watches intently, but leaves when the surface starts to crack. She leaves the newspaper to flutter to the ground, beside some half-chewed chips. It's littering, but no one's around to care.

Mrs Tachyon is the last person on Earth, and then there is no one. She disappears in her trolley, leaving only the rubbish and a few wheel marks from the trolley. The Earth crumbles after she leaves, and bits of it are sent everywhere in space.

There is only the giant red sun left in the sky to mark where the Earth once was.

\---

She interrupts a lecture on Time Travel, and sits at one of the ancient pews. The lecturer continues, rubbing his white beard thoughtfully.

"Now Time Travel is, of course, utterly impossible," he says, then pauses, as if he'd forgotten something.

"That's what you think," Mrs. Tachyon replies. The professor winks at her, but continues the lecture, grinning every time she interrupts, and using the opportunity to change the subject a little. The students look utterly confused, but no more than usual.

When the Professor gets home, he meets her in his rooms and gives her a cup of tea. She manages to push the trolley and Guilty up the flights of steps to get there.

\---

She finds herself in a muddy, deep trench, next to a soldier. He is clearly dying, as he has a gunshot wound in his throat. Blood is spilt into the mud.

Mrs Tachyon sits the soldier down against the side of the trench, and holds his hand as he dies. The soldier has been in too much muck to worry about germs from an old bag lady, and he knows he's dead already.

"Thank you," he says quietly before dying.

Mrs. Tachyon doesn't say anything, but opens up one of the bags and leaves. Her beady eyes glisten with what might be tears.

\---

The fires spread around the city, and she watches the old buildings burn.

A few policemen find her, but she tells them that they're in the twilight zone and they recognise her. They decide to take her from the danger.

In the cells, she finds a strange man wearing a long coat, who is trying to get out. He grins at her, flashing white teeth, and she grins back. She charges up the stairs with her trolley.

"National... Postal... Service...!" she shouts, and cackles. Guilty follows, hissing and scratching. The policemen don't quite know how to deal with a manic Mrs Tachyon, so they open the door for her to leave.

The policemen search the cells for the other man, but he is nowhere to be found. They assume that he escaped on his own, and never suspect Mrs. Tachyon of helping him. After all, the old woman is stark staring mad.

\---

Johnny starts to worry when he hasn't seen Mrs Tachyon for a while. She could be sightseeing around time, but she could also be dead somewhere.

He doesn't doubt that it's possible for her to die in another time. If he did, he knows he'd hear her voice on the edge of his thinking, telling him, "That's what you think!"

But even bags of time can't stop her from dying, and he's getting much older, so she must be. And so he worries, even though he shouldn't, because he worries anyway.

And he makes sure that he gives her something to eat from time to time, as time repaid. She always seems grateful for it.

\---

 


End file.
